


haunted

by emilieee



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Crack I guess, Gen, Humour, gabriel agreste is stressed as he should be, plagg is the Real Dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:54:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25451215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emilieee/pseuds/emilieee
Summary: When Gabriel goes a step too far, Plagg has decided he’s had enough.Meanwhile, Gabriel has discovered that his house may or may not be haunted, because a vengeful spirit certainly seems to be after him.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Plagg
Comments: 40
Kudos: 245





	haunted

**Author's Note:**

> another crack fic ft gabriel's two brain cells dont ask me what i was on

“Well,” Adrien is saying as he trudges inside the room and kicks the door shut. “There’s that, then.” 

Plagg flits out from his shirt. His face is set in an angry mask, tail sticking straight up. “That’s that?” he echoes. “No, that’s absurd! Your father’s absurd! He should come back here and I’ll give him a piece of my mind and—” 

Adrien squeezes his eyes shut. “Plagg, it’s fine. Forget it.” 

Plagg makes an angry noise in the back of his throat. “So you’re just gonna take that? For  _ weeks?  _ He has  _ no right.”  _

In his hand is the piece of paper—now crumpled—that his father had shoved into his fingers before he stormed off: the schedule for the fashion show. It runs for a week, but there’s also a terrifying amount of preparations to be done two weeks prior—all of which his father had decided he needed to be present for. 

“I can’t risk making father angry,” Adrien settles with. 

Plagg folds his arms. “Fine,” his kwami says curtly, in a manner of speaking that Adrien always finds hard to argue with. “Hypothetically speaking, then, if your father found out his plans had been cata—destroyed, would you be allowed to go out?” 

“Plagg, I’m not going to break into my father’s study as Chat Noir to cataclysm his work just so I can go out with friends.” 

Plagg smiles at him. It’s the smile Adrien had often gotten before he’d discovered the toilet paper in his washroom all scratched up and littering the floor. “Don’t worry,” comes the reply. “You won’t have to.” 

***

Gabriel Agreste’s study is locked, but that doesn’t prove a problem for the small black shape that slips through the doors like they’re made of nothing more than mist. It’s dark, but cats have always seen better at night anyway. 

There, on the top of his desk, lies the designs for the first set of clothes that are to be showcased. Meticulous notes. Fabric samples. Timing and schedules. Signatures and contracts.

The small, black cat picks the folder up with two paws. Then it crumbles into dust. 

***

“Nathalie, did you touch the folder on my desk?” 

It’s been a long morning—Gabriel had been up at 4 AM in an attempt to see if he could get an edge on Ladybug and Chat Noir. It had been horrendous to find someone to akumatize so early, and by the time he’d pinpointed his victim—forty five minutes later—he had nearly fallen asleep. He’d been pummelled by Ladybug and Chat Noir.  _ Absolutely pummelled. And then _ , as if the situation couldn't help but get worse, Audrey Bourgeois had called him at six (just when he was about to go back to bed) and told him she couldn’t make it to the fashion show. 

That woman had  _ no regard  _ for timezones. And no regard for  _ him,  _ either, because part of the marketing for the fashion week was Audrey’s attendance. 

Gabriel was considering akumatizing himself when he realized the manila folder on his desk—that had been there when he left the night prior—was nowhere to be seen. 

He searches through all his files. Crawls under his desk. Checks his lair. It's gone. 

“ _ Nathalie!”  _ he bellows again, and she comes barrelling through the door to his office. 

“What is it, sir?” 

Gabriel takes a deep breath. “Have you seen the files for the fashion show? It was in the folder on my desk when I left.” 

“Sir, I haven’t been in your office since last night, and I’m certain I saw your files there. Are you sure you haven’t misplaced it?” 

Misplaced it, yeah. That’s what it was. Probably. 

Now, what he needed was a nap. 

***

The files do not turn up. Gabriel sends Nathalie to print them out again. The most important stuff is stored on his computer, but there are signatures he’d spent weeks getting. 

He locks the files in his drawer the next time he gets it. 

***

Tuesday morning finds Gabriel Agreste feeling much more refreshed. He even joins Adrien for three minutes during breakfast. 

He walks into his office to find his favourite coffee mug in smithereens on the ground. 

The files are still stored safely in his drawer. But there is a big, ugly tear across the dress he’d been working on for the past three months. 

Gabriel screams. 

***

Gabriel Agreste isn’t a fan of security cameras in his office. Especially because anyone with some hacking ability could possibly get their hands on the tape, and the last thing he needs is someone seeing him descending into his lair, or opening the safe behind his painting. Really—there’s simply too many sketchy things he’s done in the office for him to trust putting a camera there. 

But he installs two of them nonetheless. His coffee mug could be an accident. But that rip on the dress? No, the only explanation is that it was intentional. But  _ how?  _

Gabriel thinks of possibilities until he gives himself a headache. 

***

“Father seems stressed lately,” Adrien notes to Plagg. There’s not much time for himself between busy schedules, but the moments in between he catches to talk to his kwami. The past week, stuck alone in his room with barely any interaction with his friends, has been draining. He cherishes the precious minutes he gets to spend with Plagg. 

“Does he?” Plagg asks in a tone of practiced disinterest. “Well, he does have that  _ really  _ important fashion week thing coming up.” 

“He asked me if I’d broken into his study a day ago, but he always locks his study. I think some of his files were missing.” 

“Oh?” Plagg replies. “That’s terrible misfortune.” 

“Father says he thinks a thief snuck in in the middle of the night and stole them, but we have security cameras all around the house and nothing happened.” 

“Spooky.” 

“Plagg…” 

Plagg only shrugs. “Perhaps your house is haunted,” he replies disinterestedly. “Good thing you’re not scared of ghosts, Adrien.” 

***

The house is haunted, and Gabriel cannot sleep. 

The most terrifying part of watching the footage is that he sees nothing. There is no movement. No nothing. But then, the next morning, his files  _ inside the locked drawer  _ have disappeared. 

Nathalie asks him about the dark rings around his eyes. He drinks two more cups of coffees in response. 

***

Gabriel’s eyes are burning, but he’s determined to stay awake. 

He likes to think himself neat and meticulous, but even _he_ has his breaking point—his desk is littered with coffee cups, and he’s resorted to drinking energy drinks to keep himself awake. There’s less than ten days until the fashion show starts. It’s been so heavy on his schedule that he’s barely found time to akumatize three three people the past week. 

Ladybug and Chat Noir must be having a field day while he’s sitting miserably in his office, waiting to catch the thief, too exhausted to summon up more akumas. 

The clock ticks past midnight. Gabriel nearly faceplants into a coffee mug. 

Another cup of redbull. 

By the time it’s two in the morning, nothing shocking in particular has happened. Every time the flashing light of a car drives past the front of the house he starts, sits back down, and struggles to keep his eyes open. 

It’s 2:04 when a  _ crash  _ sounds outside of his office. 

Like a madman, Gabriel scrambles up from his seat. He knocks over a half-finished mug of coffee in the process, but that doesn’t matter. The door of his office slams open. He trips on a rug. But he gets up and runs like he’s never run before. 

With all the force he can muster, he slams his palm down on the light, and the once-dark staircase and hall become bathed in golden light. The chandelier flickers twice and he stares down at the hall with half the mind to wonder if he’s going to finally see the ghost. 

Gabriel is the only one in the hall. 

He checks once more. Then again. Then again. But there is no one there, no source of the crash—

_ Oh, no.  _

The painting he’d bid at an auction twelve years ago—one that had cost a  _ fortune— _ has fallen off the wall and face planted into the floor. The sight of it physically hurts Gabriel, and he’s scrambling towards it in a mixture of fear and anger when another noise sounds in his office. 

In the months of being Hawkmoth, Gabriel Agreste has felt a generous range of emotions. But never has he felt such bone-chilling fear. 

He heads back up the steps with robotic movements numbly. Down the corridor. Into his office. 

There is no one there, and the mess that has been made is moreso his fault than of the invisible thief—or  _ ghost— _ but _then_ Gabriel sees one of his locked drawers open and the contents inside dumped unceremoniously on the ground. 

The next day, when Nathalie finds him out cold on the ground, he attributes it to the exhaustion and the amount of coffee and energy drinks he’d consumed. But deep down, Gabriel knows that it’s the terror that’s finally caught up. 

Either way, he faints. 

***

Gabriel is confined to bed by a very concerned Nathalie. She usually heeds to his instructions, but the rare insistence from her and his own fatigue lands him out of commission for the day. It doesn’t stop him, however, from giving her a set of instructions. 

“First, my office,” Gabriel croaks. His throat hurts—he must’ve caught a cold as well. “Please clean everything up and reinstall the locks. And then… and then…” 

He thinks of the missing files— _ three times— _ and grits his teeth. “Cancel the fashion week.” 

Nathalie’s jaw drops open. “Sir—” 

“I  _ know,”  _ Gabriel mutters. “I just… I’m left with no choice. I’ll reschedule. Make up some excuse.” 

She dips her head. “Noted, sir. Is that all?”    


Gabriel gives her a miserable nod. She’s halfway out the door when he remembers. 

“Nathalie!” he yells. “Get me a shaman, too.” 

***

“The fashion week is cancelled.” Adrien looks up from practicing piano. “Father is sick, I think, which might be why. Nathalie looked super stressed when I saw her before my lessons.” 

“Cancelled?” Plagg echoes dispassionately. “Huh. That’s too bad, I guess.” 

“No, that’s  _ good!  _ I mean, it’s  _ not  _ good that my father is sick and Nathalie is stressed, but… at least I won’t be hounded about preparations. I even got permission to go out today.” 

“Huh,” Plagg replies. He settles himself into his wheel of cheese. “I guess you’re lucky after all, then.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr at [e-milieeee!](https://e-milieeee.tumblr.com/)


End file.
